INDEX	Sunday May 9, 2021
Story from an asylum
About 18 months ago I was at an asylum in Cumbria to support someone at a Mental Health Tribunal. Most find these place forbidding, and with good reason, but I'm used to them since when I was a councillor I was appointed a member of the District Health Authority and through that became a Mental Health Manager. Anyway, there we were doing the usual long wait when I got talking to one of the other patients. She told the story of how she had written a book that had been published but then got banned because it had upset someone. She claimed enormous numbers of the book had been sold but she never got a penny out of it. Now most of that sounds like a fantasy but never getting a penny from a distributor... That has the ring of truth about it. Anyway, she lent me the manuscript since this was about the only way I could read the book. Although Amazon lists it you can't actually buy it from them or anywhere else. Yes there was a publisher, but as is standard in these cases when I went onto the web site and left a message, I got no reply. Thanks mainly to the lockdown I copied the book and now have it on my computer. But by this time I'd lost touch with the woman and the asylum has been shut. All doors seemed to be closed. There didn't seem to be any way to return the manuscript. But I found an old address for the woman (a very old address) and sent a copy of the manuscript there. Almost immediately I got a text back saying no such person known at that address. Did I want the manuscript returned? No, I said, but if you happen to know the woman or her family pass it on to them please. Nothing happened for about three weeks and then today I got a text. One of her sons has been given the manuscript. I wonder what will happen next?
Posted by Jonathan Brind.
INDEX
Sunday May 9, 2021